TASTE TREAT THAT WILL FIRST HIT YOUR NOSE

Tucked in a small alley in Andingmen, one of the oldest neighborhoods of downtown Beijing, is a family restaurant with floor space of barely six square meters. The three Chinese characters that stand for Liuzhou rice noodles are splashed in bright red on a nearly pristine board on one of its walls, a bold statement of what taste treats lie ahead.

But this restaurant hardly need boast, for praise comes for it from many other quarters, including the food rating app Dianping, which has heaped praise on if for the "most authentic luosifen (snail noodles) in Beijing".

It is rare that a noodle that boasts a flavor so different and distant from the local appetite could be on offer in a street with many ancient buildings and gourmet restaurants that hark back to the capital's past.

In the world of Chinese gastronomy few things are renowned for their pungent－and for some, repellent－smell, but each is a classic and is loved by millions, including Anhui stinky mandarin fish, Changsha stinky tofu, Beijing mung bean juice and luosifen.

The owner of this tiny restaurant, Wang Guixi, of Liuzhou, Guangxi Zhuang autonomous region, from which luosifen comes, boasts of snail noodles that he says turn up the pungency full volume, unlike other Beijing providers of luosifen who feel the smellometer needs to go in the other direction in deference to local noses and palates.

But rather than being driven away by Wang's take-it-or-leave-it approach to preparing luosifen, his noodles are sold out every day and he often closes his doors early in the afternoon.

"Most people only know that snail noodles have a pungent smell, but authentic snail noodles have to be refreshing, spicy and hot at the same time," he says. "Of course, we always subconsciously compare which restaurant is better, but you should not overlook the fact that the snail meat and sour bamboo shoots, the two essential toppings for snail noodles, are the criteria you need to consider first.

"In producing sour bamboo shoots you first need to select the big meaty and attractive bamboo shoots, supplemented with spring water specially drawn from the mountain, and finally kept in a large earthen jar for a couple of weeks. This is how the smell of pickled bamboo shoots can stimulate diners' taste buds."

In recent years luosifen have grown in popularity, even though you could not say they had taken off across the country. But then came COVID-19 and a greater reliance of hundreds of millions of Chinese on online shopping over the past six months, and the renown－or notoriety－of luosifen, rocketed. Among the monickers attached to it on the internet were "King of Darkness", "gastronomic bioweapon", the food "that puts your friendship with your roommates to the test", and the food "with the smell of a broken toilet".However, rather than driving away would-be customers, and perhaps future connoisseurs, of the noodles, it has transformed in 2020 into a nationwide sensation.

The Liuzhou Municipal Bureau of Commerce says daily production and sales of the noodles doubled from before the pandemic to 3 million bags. Those surging sales have fed growing interest on the internet in the noodles, which in turn has no doubt generated growing sales.

In May the People's Daily and Li Ziqi, a video blogger with 11.9 million followers on YouTube and 26 million on Sina Weibo, released their collaboration luosifen, and hit newspaper headlines. Last month Wuling Motors, one of China's biggest pickup truck and minivan makers, launched Wuling limited edition luosifen, and this month Li Ziqi announced that she had invested in the construction of a luosifen factory in Liuzhou and had formed a strategic partnership with the local government on Liuzhou snail noodles.

"Judging from these operations, there is no doubt that everyone is rushing to create topics to attract the attention of young consumer groups," says Guo Xin, a marketing professor at Beijing Technology and Business University.

"The result has been good business traffic and exposure. Because of being unable to go out for dinner during the epidemic and because of a lack of foodstuffs, instant food has become a popular necessity. Coupled with the catalytic push of internet celebrities, the sales of snail noodles have ushered in explosive growth, and hundreds of thousands of searches have been posted on Weibo and TikTok."

In February the value of sales of snail noodles on the internet shopping platform Taobao exceeded 390 million yuan. Since then, monthly sales have more than doubled compared with the corresponding period last year, the Taobao Foodstuffs Big Data Report says. Ele.me, one of China's major online food delivery services, says take-away orders for luosifen have risen 58 percent after Feb 25.

No matter what manufacturer or brand of snail noodles you come across, a distinct smell is destined to hit your soul, the progenitor of that smell being sour bamboo shoots.

In humid Guangxi sourness is integral to local food. In addition, because bamboo is abundant in the region, and it is difficult to keep bamboo shoots fresh, sour bamboo shoots have naturally become the local staple side dish, one that depends on fermentation to prolong its usefulness.

In a study by Guangxi University on the nutrient composition of sour bamboo shoots and its main flavor substances, sour bamboo shoots were mashed and put in a test tube, with gas then being separated through heating in a water bath. The smell of the gas was then analyzed using a gas chromatography mass spectrometer, and the stinking culprit was identified: p-cresol.

Fresh bamboo is rich in an amino acid called tyrosine, and when pickling sour bamboo shoots, the bamboo shoots are directly poured into clean water or rice water to stand still for between two weeks and a month. In this process, tyrosine is metabolized and degraded, the aim being to it into p-cresol.

Those who have studied high school chemistry may recall that due to the similarity of chemical composition, p-cresol also has the same pungent odor as disinfectant, coupled with some rotten fish and burnt leather smells.

"I don't think it's smelly at all," says Wang Jing, who regards himself as a connoisseur."If luosifen is just about a foul smell, it might be on 'hot sell' for a short time because of those hunting for a novelty, but the soul sour bamboo shoots are the magic. As long as you put it in your mouth only the savory taste lingers. It's the taste of a past and present life."

According to the Guangxi University study, this is because while the smelly substances are produced by the fermentation of bamboo shoots, short peptides, amino acids and sugars are dissociated. As a typical high-protein aquatic product, the snail soup is also rich in nucleotides and polysaccharides, which all have high melting points, and are nonvolatile with their umami substance. We can't smell but we can taste it.

So those who appreciate snail noodles have really tasted the sweetness. It is precisely with this strange taste that snail noodles have torn many people's traditional dietary views beyond Guangxi.